Best Finance
While preserving the integrity of Graham's original text, this revised edition includes updated commentary by noted financial journalist Jason Zweig, whose perspective incorporates the realities of today's market, draws parallels between Graham's examples and today's financial headlines, and gives readers a more thorough understanding of how to apply Graham's principles. Among the library of investment books promising no-fail strategies for riches, Benjamin Graham's classic, The Intelligent Investor , offers no guarantees or gimmicks but overflows with the wisdom at the core of all good portfolio management. Graham's sage advice, analytical guides, and cautionary tales are still valid for the contemporary investor, and Zweig's commentaries demonstrate the relevance of Graham's principles in light of 1990s and early twenty-first century market trends.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"If you are not a professional - you'll appreciate the commentaries and epilogue - read it first? Several rules of thumbs I noted into my keep: - Investor buys the business [based on its price/value], speculator buys the stock [based on an absurd believe that he can foresee where the stock price will go]. Thus, invest in such old economy companies while bubble grows, as soon as the bubble burst - undervalued companies would rise back. Dividends - money firm pays you for providing capital, they belong to you."
"Not only will you get superb financial advice, but also an outstanding piece of literature written by a brilliant mind. In an illustrative contrast between the two men, while Graham might show what he thinks about a certain Wall Street practice with a sardonic quote from classical literature, Zweig disparages IPOs by showing us how many silly phrases he can think up to stand for the acronym."
"It is not a 101 guide to the basics of the stock market, but even if you go into this book with little to no knowledge of the stock market, it is informative enough that if you are intuitive, you can learn (by deduction) about investing."
"Very good that one book all information available for investor."
"New and seal in plastic wrap."
"Difficult for me to follow."
"The original text was updated in 1972 by Graham and then Jason Zweig adds his commentary in 2003 to relate to the changes at that time."
"No complaints of the book itself, but the Kindle edition of it is bad."
Richer Than A Millionaire ~ A Pathway to True Prosperity ~~~. Enter the new title and get your copy today! The implication of The Millionaire Next Door ...is that nearly anybody with a steady job can amass a tidy fortune. The kind of information that could lift the economic prospects of individuals more than any government policy... The Millionaire Next Door has a theme that I think rings very true..."Hey, I can do it. It talks about how it is a myth that most millionaires in America have inherited their money. We have actually found the way for poor people to go from nothing to huge wealth and to create a life-changing opportunity for their children and grandchildren.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I bought this book for information on making the most of any extra income, learning more about investing strategies, options for generating passive income, and improving my personal finances. The book primarily focuses on interesting finds and anecdotes from the authors' years of research on millionaires in America. UAWs have a low net worth relative to income, and the opposite for PAWs and uses these terms throughout the book. His primary argument is that PAWs get to be wealthy by living well below their means - these are people who do not look like millionaires, they live in modest neighborhoods, drive domestic sedans, wear a Timex, and usually have a blue-collar job that does not come with an expensive lifestyle associated and as a result can accumulate a sizeable nest egg. On the other hand, UAWs are typically well-educated professionals with high paying and high profile jobs (doctors, attorneys), but due to societal pressures associated with their social standing are forced to squander all their money living in luxury neighborhoods, driving German cars, and sending their kids to private schools. Where the authors really lost my interest is that the rest of the book is chock full of anecdotes and some rather uninformative statistics to drive a few other points home. - First generation millionaires (often immigrants) tend to be succeeded by children with financial struggles, since the parent's desire to "give them a better life" pushes them into careers where they become UAWs, and their upbringing in our consumerist culture impedes their ability to live frugally. The authors devote an entire chapter to this while only coming to the following conclusions: no method of buying a car is the clear winner, but if you own a business you may benefit from your connections with the owners of car dealerships; and most millionaires drive unassuming domestic (and to a lesser extent, Japanese) cars purchased new or lightly used. I would hardly categorize it as a self-help book, it's more a retrospective on the authors' research and a collection of anecdotes and interesting conclusions about the countless Americans leading unglamorous lives while accumulating appreciable amounts of wealth. I would only recommend this book as an interesting overview of some good financial habits, or as an eye-opener for those with luxurious financial tendencies who struggle to save money despite their income level."
"This is such an inspiring read because it shows almost anyone can become a millionaire if you live below your means and invest well. I love that the majority of millionaires are people you'd never suspect because they don't live flashy lives in big houses with high-status toys abounding."
"Read full summary and review of this book on my blog: imeducatingmyself.com/the-millionaire-next-door-by-thomas-j-stanley-ph-d-book-review. What do I think about this book? There are so many things that you learn through life and experience, and there are many common sense things shared."
"Definitely has some great recommendation on changing your financial status!"
"Its ok, kind of drones on about the same stuff."
"Everyone should read this book."
"Very good read about research done on who the wealthy / millionaires are , how they got their and how they run their lifestyle to get and accumulate wealth."
"Good book."
The Richest Man in Babylon is a book by George Samuel Clason which dispenses financial advice through a collection of parables set in ancient Babylon. These were distributed in large quantities by banks and insurance companies and became familiar to millions, the most famous being “The Richest Man in Babylon,” the parable from which the present volume takes its title.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I started this book about a month ago and with each chapter I read I applied what I learned to my life."
"I chose this book because of the reviews and because it was mentioned in a book I had previously read."
"From beginning to end, very thought provoking with examples on how to change your habits tied with ancient story telling."
"Definitely has some great recommendation on changing your financial status!"
"The wording was a bit hard to understand at first, but I got through it."
"The wisdom in this book can show you the way to a prosperous life."
"Good to be reminded of the things that underpin our country."
"My 2 sons are reading this book so they can understand the beginning stages of finances."
Best Corporate Finance
How to raise money; What terms matter and which ones don’t; How to negotiate a fair deal for everyone; What makes venture capitalists tick, including how they are compensated and motivated; How companies are valued by venture capitalists; How all current structures of funding work, including convertible debt, crowdfunding, pre-sales and other non-traditional methods; How these particular issues change through different stages of financing (seed, early, mid and late); and How to avoid business and legal pitfalls that many entrepreneurs make. And as in the previous editions, this book isn’t just a one-sided opinion from venture capitalists, but also has helpful commentary throughout from a veteran CEO who has raised many rounds of financing from many different investors. “When I was a founder, VCs hoarded information about how venture capital terms worked to stack the deck in their favor. Along came Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson who started giving away the game by publishing how things worked on their blog. “Having worked with Brad and Jason during the Internet bubble, I witnessed first-hand the experience they gained by doing deals that covered the entire range of issues an entrepreneur faces today. The authors' frank style and incisive insight make this a must-read for high-growth company entrepreneurs, early-stage investors, and graduate students. This book goes far beyond the nuts and bolts of term sheets and venture capital to give invaluable insights into the importance of building relationships based on trust. “I have been lucky to have Brad Feld as a mentor as a VC, and watch him advise companies as a board member. Brad and Jason demystify the overly complex world of term sheets and M&A, cutting through the legalese and focusing on what really matters. Having an educated entrepreneur on the other side of the table means you spend your time negotiating the important issues and ultimately get to the right deal faster." Brad and Jason are highly respected investors who shoot straight from the hip and tell it like it is, bringing a level of transparency to a process that is rarely well understood. - Emily Mendell, Vice President of Communications, National Venture Capital Association.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I am a 2x entrepreneur who has raised over $20M in VC funding, so when i say this is a must-read IF you want to raise money I am speaking out of experience. I wish I had this book in 2007, when I was trying to raise money. VCs are in the business to accomplish two things: (1) preserve their LP capital (i.e. don't lose money). As an entrepreneur you end up working for the VCs and will get wealthy if your company ends up being one of the 0.01% of VC companies that have very successful exits. so lets look at the main two things covered in this book that describe how VCs make money: VCs get their money from pension funds, alternative asset funds, government organizations, and basically any large sources of capital that is looking for risk-adjusted better-than-average returns. There are many other ways to raise money - loans, venture debt, private equity, and good ol' sales... Granted, this might not be the fastest way to grow your company and presents the risk of being overtaken by a well-funded company. But if you know that the market is big enough for more then one player (even if you're #2), and you want to keep a larger amount of your hard-earned money and reduce the influence of VCs then think twice about the VC option."
"This book is a must read to understand the basics of the VC world and helps you understand the basic building blocks of the most important aspects of the business as an entrepreneur."
"This is the second time in my life I find myself doing the rounds to collect proper money from investors. The authors, seasoned VC entrepreneurs, have a gift for writing and that’s what carries you through the book. So I’m reading this and the only thing that keeps me from saying “OK, boys and girls, this covers everything, it’s the gospel” is the simple fact that if I was a VC I’d write a book that makes the case for the VC’s interests rather than the entrepreneur’s. If for some mysterious reason you don’t want a preview, on the other hand, look away now, because what follows is my summary of the key points: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------. Chapter 1: “The Players”. • You need to be talking to a Managing Director or a General Partner. • You need a good, experienced lawyer: this is an awful place to skimp. • Mentors are great. Chapter 2: “How to Raise Money”. • You need an elevator pitch, an executive summary and a 10-slide powerpoint presentation. • “We haven’t seen a business plan in more than 20 years”. • Your financial model must get the potential expenses right; forget about nailing the revenues. • Do your homework on your VC and don’t press any clearly advertised wrong buttons. • If you feel like your VC is a proctologist, run for the hills. • Ask your VC for references from entrepreneurs. Chapter 3: “Overview of the Term Sheet: • It’s not a letter of intent; it’s a blueprint for your future relationship with your VC. • Two things matter: economics and control. Chapter 4: “Economic Terms of the Term Sheet”. • Understand the difference between pre-money and post-money. • The VC will try to stick the options pool in the pre-money valuation. • You must have a Plan B to be able to negotiate good economic terms. • Competition aside, valuation will depend on the stage of the company, the team’s experience, the numbers, the suitability for the VC and the economic environment. • Liquidation Preference arises because VCs come in with preferred stock and means the VC gets its money first. • Fully Participating stock receives its participation amount and then shares in the liquidation process on an as-converted basis. • A cap can be put on the participation. • Under “pay to play” provisions, investors who do not participate in the next round get converted to common stock. • Typically, employee stocks and options will vest over four years and disappear if somebody leaves. • Consideration must be given to treating the vesting as clawback with an IRS Section 83(b) election. • Acceleration of vesting upon change of control is a key feature, don’t leave it out! • Antidilution provisions may be requested by the investor for the case where new common stock is created after the financing. Chapter 5: “Control Terms of the Term Sheet”. • At the beginning it will be 1. 2nd VC, 5. outside board member. • Don’t allow observers on your board. • Make sure the Protective Provisions allow you to borrow a reasonable amount of money. • Your investors need to vote as a single class. • There will be a drag-along provision (majority of shares on as-converted basis is the law in Delaware). • There will be a conversion clause (so VCs can vote alongside common stock when they must). • An automatic conversion clause can be there to force VCs to give up on their preferred ahead of a sale. Chapter 6: “Other Terms of the Term Sheet”. • Dividends might be requested by dorky VCs with Private Equity background. Chapter 8: “Convertible Debt”. • Convertible converts at a discount to the next financing. • You should put a reasonable time horizon on an equity financing as a condition, or you will find the debt converted before you had time to do the financing. • Follow-on investments can still be made during the investment term of the fund. • If a fund is approaching the end of its life, you don’t want them to invest in you and most probably they can’t anyway. Chapter 10: “Negotiation Tactics”. • Get a good result, do not kill your personal relationships and understand the deal you struck. Chapter 11: “Raising Money the Right Way”. • Don’t ask for an NDA. • Don’t negotiate your deal at the beginning (that looks awful) but don’t leave it last either."
Best Crowdfunding
Bold unfolds in three parts. It. is today’s exponential entrepreneur’s go-to resource on the use of emerging technologies, thinking at scale, and the awesome power of crowd-powered tools. “ Bold is a visionary roadmap for people who believe they can change the world---and offers invaluable advice about bringing together the partners and technologies to help them do it.” (President Bill Clinton). BOLD, spells out the implications and opportunities driven by exponential changes transforming our world." When Peter and I cofounded Singularity University, we based it on the ideas of exponential change and ‘learn by doing.’ This book clearly explains how to apply these concepts to change the world and overcome the age old afflictions of human civilization.”- (Ray Kurzweil, inventor, author, director of engineering at Google, Chancellor of Singularity University). “I loved Peter Diamandis’ and Steven Kotler’s book Abundance , their writing and their Vision. "Expressed with sunny optimism and promise, Diamandis and Kotler share their extensive experience and knowledge, hoping to boost innovative potential within the technology startup arena and inspire readers to "get off the couch and change the world."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The book was promoted as a "how to" book. Since there aren't any practical breakthrough how-to's in this book, I can summarize the entire book in two words, "Think Big!" I am not being negative, since this book tries to prevent such comment by indicating that if you don't think the way this book tells you to think, you are not on the right mindset. With all it's shallowness, this book is still well done. Ultimately, by the end of the book, I found out that this book is actually a promotional material to bring your attention to the author's $10,000 motivational event called "Abundance 360." In the Afterword: Next Steps--How to take Action, the author urges you to join his expensive programs and services, to seize the golden opportunity the book has hyped up. ===== UPDATE 02-12-2015=====. Just would like to add value to those who are reading this review: I received a new book for review a couple of days ago which is somewhat in the same vain of this book about futuristic enterprises, but that book spends only a few pages hyping the golden opportunity but the rest of the book is completely filled with practical applications that you can put to action immediately for your company, instead of just a bunch of BOLD air. Plus, that book doesn't sell you anything at the end."
"I read / listen to about 30 books a year and the best of those I share with our clients and prospects -- we've already purchased 100 copies for our best prospects, with a hope that we can help inspire some BOLD new ideas for their current vision."
"It's a great primer for areas you should look to get into for the future, and a way to think about how to bring value to the future. Lastly, the section on contests seemed a little long-winded, but I guess that's great if you're going to hold a contest and need detailed advice."
"There is no doubt in my mind that Peter and Steven have done some extraordinary things with their lives. If you have never read an article about Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or Richard Branson, you can find those here. On page 126 the authors highlight a glass bottom plane as an industry "first." I suppose my contribution is to you, a potential reader, to strongly consider if this book is what you are looking for before you add it to your cart."
Best Financial Engineering
Cybermoney is poised to launch a revolution, one that could reinvent traditional financial and social structures while bringing the world's billions of "unbanked" individuals into a new global economy. But bitcoin, the most famous of the cybermonies, carries a reputation for instability, wild fluctuation, and illicit business; some fear it has the power to eliminate jobs and to upend the concept of a nation-state. “To their ample credit, Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey, veteran Wall Street Journal reporters, resist the common temptations to hype their trendy subject. “Thorough, multidisciplinary approach to the topic, including a fascinating examination of the origin of money... newcomers will gain a better understanding of the revolutionary potential of digital currency...And the explication of the non-currency applications of the concepts behind Bitcoin--such as tamper-proof records of verified information will be valuable to any reader.” ― Publishers Weekly, starred review. “Anyone who doubts that bitcoin and its imitators are at the early stage of altering fundamentally the global payments system--if not the nature of money itself--will find it difficult to resist Michael Casey and Paul Vigna's admirably clear and judicious account. “An invaluable book: a fascinating field guide to the phenomenon in which three of the most powerful forces shaping our world today--the reform of finance, technological innovation, and the rejection of traditional politics--meet.” ― Felix Martin, author of Money: The Unauthorized Biography. “ The Age of Cryptocurrency not only demystifies and explains bitcoin, but also shows where it fits into the cultural zeitgeist and where it's pointed, and what that may mean for our financial system.” ― John Mauldin, New York Times bestselling author of Endgame. “[I]n...their fascinating book on the topic, Wall Street Journal columnists Paul Vigna and Michael Casey set out to convince readers that bitcoin is not only going straight, but has the potential to change the world.” ― Literary Review. “Bitcoin and Bitchain (sic) are likely to revolutionize money...The book to read on this topic is The Age of Cryptocurrency by Vigna and Casey two Wall Street Journal financial journalists.” ―Rishad Tobbacowala.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The reader of this review may find it useful to mix my point of view with that of the book itself in trying to envision the mechanics. It appears to have been started by a single idiosyncratic individual calling himself Satoshi Nakamoto but whose identity remains unknown and who dropped out of sight some three years ago. Fiat currencies are imminently bankable, they can be moved around electronically with great ease. The counterfeiter can create false paper money, and a financial manipulator or central bank can arbitrarily dilute current holders, expanding the money supply by creating dollars out of thin air. The implications of being able to trace the history of every transaction in which a piece of money has been involved are extremely broad. Unlike a Federal Reserve System you cannot have $85 billion created every month out of thin air. There is a publicly available record of every transaction ever done within the system going back to Nakamoto's genesis block. But if, just for instance, you interpret each string of six letters as a (12 place hexadecimal) number, and add those up, the result is huge: 5,642,316,386,171,830. Rest assured that bitcoin uses bigger numbers and a more sophisticated scheme than I show here. 46. The take-home point is that a large volume of text can be (very close to) uniquely vouched for by a fairly compact number. Every transaction document can thus be represented uniquely enough for bitcoin's purposes by some string of numbers. It takes a large number, but one which is very small in comparison to the original document for which it vouches. Most importantly, this hash also includes the hash from the previous batch, which has in the intervening ten minutes been vetted by a "proof of work" concept, authenticated and accepted by the electronic voting process of the bitcoin community. These summary hashes, combined with the backwards links in the block chain, knit together every transaction in the history of the bitcoin universe. A little arithmetic (mine, not the authors') demonstrates that the data volumes are well within the realm of modern computing. Presumably, though it is not discussed, there is some kind of a tiered scheme, so as not to waste too much resource storing inactive data. The block chain serves two functions it guarantees the integrity of the system and it makes it compact enough that there is a way to work with it. This hash total functioning, and in fact almost all of the operation, is highly encrypted using public key cryptography. For a good description, see Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers. In my simplistic example I said that we will digitize the representation of six characters and interpret the group as a large number. What fraud has occurred in bitcoin is due to human error rather than any architectural flaws. Going back to the book the authors do a good job of reporting the early days of bitcoin and then surveying how it is used today. They observe that bitcoin can only handle 7 transactions per second versus the 10,000 or so that Visa is structured to manage. In order for bitcoin to emerge as a competitor with the big financial houses, its architecture may need to be rethought. The counterargument is that this is equally true of fiat currencies, and bitcoin has the benefit of scarcity. Deflation works against governments, which depend on inflation to progressively hike people's tax brackets and things like that. How governments deal with bitcoin is an interesting question into which the authors delve at length. Bribe the right judge and he will change the paper land records, depriving you of a property right. The authors talk about its attraction in a place like Argentina that has not had a reliable currency since Juan Peron in the 1950s. Therefore when the governments decree that you cannot change pesos or rubles or whatever the fiat currency is into something more attractive, bitcoin seems to offer an alternative. Let me close in saying that this book will give you an insight into the modern financial system and a good appreciation of bitcoin, which may represent the most serious intellectual challenge to the structure of finance, both national and international, to arise within the past couple of centuries."
"You get a thorough introduction on what money is, or rather what it is that that turns something into money, you get an introduction to the biosphere out of which Bitcoin sprung, including a long list of its predecessors, and that part of the book is rounded up by a brief history of the "genesis" of Bitcoin itself. Everybody can verify that it is my Bitcoin, because my Bitcoin addresss is (or is derivable from) my public key. The above is merely an example; Bitcoin does not use RSA, it uses elliptic curves-based encryption, which (among other advantages) obviates the need to change private key every time you've changed your public key. The rest of the planet knows my wallet by the 26 to 34 character hash (you guessed it) that is a (hash of) my public key (it's not the public key itself, chiefly for error-correction purposes, one of the few times Bitcoin looks after you). The first input in the life of a Bitcoin is something along the lines of "WalletAthan was legitimately awarded 1 Bitcoin at 4:59pm on Sunday the 12th of April 2015". The 26 to 34 character hash that was my 1 Bitcoin gets re-hashed together with my brother's public key into a new 26 to 34 character hash. Something like GGe3523tn65ybn9a9441hmaR90AFGWR. So we started with 1 Bitcoin (which is a hash), we did a transaction (which is a longer hash) and we ended up with another 1 Bitcoin (which is a hash) Because the new 1 Bitcoin has my brother George’s public key somewhere in the hash, he alone knows what the private key is that can prove he is the rightful owner of the 1 Bitcoin. Whenever he feels like transferring the money to somebody else (say a bookstore), he must first unlock the 1 Bitcoin with his private key and then apply the bookstore’s public key to the 1 Bitcoin. This in turn generates 2 new hashes: 1. a 1 Bitcoin hash that has in it somewhere the bookstore’s public key. 2. a transaction hash that has in it both George’s unlocking of his public key and the bookstore’s public key (and this solves the mystery of why the transaction hash is longer). And so on. Regardless of the input, the Bitcoin hash is always <= 34 characters. A hundred years down the line the full history of what happened to every Bitcoin would be impossibly long, the Bitcoin would be pages long, but the hash keeps it all at a max of 34 characters at all times. You most obviously cannot travel from 34 characters back in time to every transaction, but the transactions themselves (64 characters apiece) are so compact that every "full node" (see below) can verify every transaction ever done via Bitcoin. The little miracle that is the hash means Bitcoin is money good that travels light. The algorithms are complex and they need to deal with the fact that computers are not connected to the network the whole time, but this technology makes is possible for Bitcoin wallets to become "nodes" in a network, with the explicit purpose of validating each other's transactions using the public key. The fourth relevant piece of technology is "Proof of Work," a lottery that involves hashing in pairs all 64-character transaction hashes of the past ten minutes and then hashing pairs of the resulting hashes until there's only one hash left (called the Merkle root) and then repeatedly hashing the Merkle root with a specified length hash (the "nonce") until a small enough hash can be generated. The first node to review a block of enough transactions and finish the requisite "proof of work" gets 25 Bitcoin (this it does by inserting an extra "coinbase" transaction whereby it is awarded 25 Bitcoin), publishes its results to the network for verification (incl. To catch a drug dealer, basically, you need to lure him into a sting and then the whole world can see you transferred money to him, but if I and my brother George can keep stumm, to find out what we did you need to go find the private key I used to encrypt the transaction and play the music forward from there (i.e. apply it to the last block's hash and the description of the transaction and then apply the public key to that and get back the mooted transaction you stuck in) Good luck to you, basically. Provided I never cash my Bitcoin into dollars (i.e. provided Bitcoin is money good and all I ever wanted to do is make a donation to the Finnish Sea Scouts, which will never be traceable to me) I can keep my identity totally safe. Obviously, 0.5 to the twentieth power is also known as one in a million, which at an original 50 Bitcoins per ten minutes corresponds to 2.5 fresh Bitcoins per annum after year 100, so Bitcoin needs to appreciate like mad for it to be worth mining for, but that's a story for later. Among other things, the tour includes: * a very good history of the actual Bitcoin protagonists such as Mt Gox. * interviews with the founders of perhaps twenty startups that are doing work along the lines of Bitcoin around the world. * a glimpse of the dinosaurs that are ripe for slaughter when the world has completed its move to cybercurrency (for example the seven companies that handle the money as it moves from my account to yours when I use my Visa card in your store). * a vista of the massive opportunity to provide transactional services to the world's unbanked, including field trips to the third world to see the work in action. Much like Michael Lewis does with Lewie Ranieri or Jim Clark or Brad Katsuyama, the authors tell the story from the angle of a "Sherpa." They explain very well that until the day people can buy everything they need using Bitcoin and also receive their salary in Bitcoin, users of Bitcoin will find themselves in the unenviable situation of an expat who gets paid in Euros but does his spending in Dollars, i.e. hostages to the exchange rate of Bitcoin to the currency in which they get their salary. Moreover, they detail how the New York Department of Financial Services takes this issue to its natural conclusion and treats Bitcoin like a commodity, recommending that holders of Bitcoin be taxed on their capital gains when they liquidate their Bitcoin to make a purchase in dollars. This is entirely consistent with how they'd handle a taxpayer who keeps his cash in Euros or Sterling, so it's not unfair, but it is a massive impediment to Bitcoin being a good means of exchange, because in essence you'd have to think twice about using Bitcoin ahead of every transaction: "am I about to realise a capital gain here?" They also don't shy away from the problem that Bitcoin is in essence a "deflationary currency" in the sense that a central bank cannot manipulate Bitcoin to loosen monetary policy during a recession like the one that occurred in 2008-09 because the increase in Bitcoin is predetermined by formula. A list of technical problems with Bitcoin, finally, includes that. 1. there simply isn't enough Bitcoin to handle all the world's transactions. Bitcoins get exchanged once every ten minutes and the proof of work has to be hard enough to prevent people from mining tons of Bitcoin. 3. if somebody does collect enough computer power he can use it to overwhelm the network and endorse his own version of Blockchain and spend all his Bitcoins twice or more. 4. there's already been a case of a documented bug in the Bitcoin code, which allowed Bitcoin to be stolen. Regardless, the authors are convinced that the technology is valid and at some point will evolve to the point that the benefits from adopting it (cutting out the 3% tax on all transactions that middlemen earn, full auditing of transactions for those who wish to submit to it, the benefits to the 100 million unbanked Americans and billions of unbanked people in the third world etc."
"This book was well-written and provided a broad yet detailed picture of the history, present and possible future of the cryptocurrency and its underlying blockchain."
"A page turner if your interested in crypto currencies."
"The combination of historical background information coupled with the contemporary state of the blockchain and bitcoin world is incredible."
"If you want to learn about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general, this is a great book."
"Great way to look into Bitcoin on a deeper level."
"A well written and easy to read explanation of bitcoin and blockchain."
Best Financial Risk Management
In the book, I describe the fundamentals of day trading, explain how day trading is different from other styles of trading and investment, and elaborate on important trading strategies that many traders use every day. ABCD Pattern Trading Bull Flag Momentum Trading Top Reversal Trading Bottom Reversal Trading Moving Average Trend Trading VWAP Trading Support and Resistance Trading. For each strategy, I explain: How to find the Stock in Play for trade What indicators I am using on my charts When I enter the trade When I exit the trade (profit taking) What is my stop loss. To be successful at day trading you need the right tools and you need to be motivated, to work hard, and to persevere. At the beginning of my trading career, a pharmaceutical company announced some positive results for one of its drugs and its stock jumped from $1 to over $55 in just two days. As such, I wake up early, go for a run, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, and fire up my trading station before the markets open in New York. I am motivated when I sit down and start working on the list of stocks I will watch that day. This morning routine has tremendously helped my mental preparation for coming into the market. Whatever your routine is, starting the morning in a similar fashion will pay invaluable dividends. Sitting at your computer in your pajamas or underwear does not put you in the right mindset to attack the market. In this book, I use simple and easy to understand words to explain the strategies and concepts you need to know to launch yourself into day trading on the stock market. This book is definitely NOT a difficult, technical, hard to understand, complicated and complex guide to the stock market. I know you will learn much about day trading and the stock market from studying my book.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Scanning for stocks in play and trading unknown stocks is an approach I have resisted for my entire career but I think I have to go there now. There is also good information on other topics for real beginners such as the importance of risk management, emotional control which are important."
"In other words -- the information seemed useful, but I wasn't sure OF the author's genuine intentions (to write a great book, versus suck people in for long-term profits). Aziz offers his readers a few recommendations relative to "tools of the trade," and given this was my first experience with this sort of text -- I was caught off guard by some of what felt like self-promotion from within... Yup, as "good" as CANSLIM has (apparently) proven itself over the years, IBD not only sucked me in -- but they continue to annoy the heck out of me -- AS A PAID SUBSCRIBER -- by constantly inundating me with ads... Her "tools," by the way, are actually pretty useful... My point though, is this: Though these authors (obviously) have something to gain by increasing their follower-ship, they are also simultaneously recommending invaluable resources for ANY "trader" genuinely interested in succeeding in this business. Believe it, or not, the guy (Aziz) would be doing his readers a disservice if he didn't recommend (and/or offer) tools for success... My experiences so far: Chat Room: When I first stumbled into his chatroom, I was caught off guard. I think I was expecting some sort of forum-based venue, where newbie's like me could browse topics of interest, ask redundant questions, and receive "platinum" membership status for posting 1 billion times... And when he (Aziz) loses money on the day, it speaks volumes toward: 1) Everybody is capable of failing, and even a professional trader has risk/reward factors to consider, and 2) he's not pretending to have a "secret sauce" that will guarantee billions of dollars overnight! To be honest, I never imagined I'd put forth any sort of tangible effort into a simulator (it was "beneath me"), but now that I have the experience -- I'm soooooooo glad that I humbled myself, and took his advice! I would also argue that Aziz cuts a lot of unnecessary fluff, and focuses on providing advice that actually works; rather than just including pages of theory in an attempt to convince us of his acumen. I'm now thankful that Aziz made it a point to help guys like me consider the "big picture" ---- while holding our hand(s) along the journey ---- before my accounts were wiped away like an open bag of leaves on a gusty day!"
"Hi, This is my first read on Day trading and I find this to be an excellent foundation to build upon your a trading career."
"It is a well written and concise book for beginners."
"this book defines stock market and investment in general as saving and having a profit over time."
"Shows basics and strategies needed to understand what you are getting yourself into."
"This book will cover the most important concepts and basic strategies and not be overly technical."
"When I started reading this book I had little to no real understanding about day trading."
Best Wealth Management
Richer Than A Millionaire ~ A Pathway to True Prosperity ~~~. Enter the new title and get your copy today! The implication of The Millionaire Next Door ...is that nearly anybody with a steady job can amass a tidy fortune. The kind of information that could lift the economic prospects of individuals more than any government policy... The Millionaire Next Door has a theme that I think rings very true..."Hey, I can do it. It talks about how it is a myth that most millionaires in America have inherited their money. We have actually found the way for poor people to go from nothing to huge wealth and to create a life-changing opportunity for their children and grandchildren.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I bought this book for information on making the most of any extra income, learning more about investing strategies, options for generating passive income, and improving my personal finances. The book primarily focuses on interesting finds and anecdotes from the authors' years of research on millionaires in America. UAWs have a low net worth relative to income, and the opposite for PAWs and uses these terms throughout the book. His primary argument is that PAWs get to be wealthy by living well below their means - these are people who do not look like millionaires, they live in modest neighborhoods, drive domestic sedans, wear a Timex, and usually have a blue-collar job that does not come with an expensive lifestyle associated and as a result can accumulate a sizeable nest egg. On the other hand, UAWs are typically well-educated professionals with high paying and high profile jobs (doctors, attorneys), but due to societal pressures associated with their social standing are forced to squander all their money living in luxury neighborhoods, driving German cars, and sending their kids to private schools. Where the authors really lost my interest is that the rest of the book is chock full of anecdotes and some rather uninformative statistics to drive a few other points home. - First generation millionaires (often immigrants) tend to be succeeded by children with financial struggles, since the parent's desire to "give them a better life" pushes them into careers where they become UAWs, and their upbringing in our consumerist culture impedes their ability to live frugally. The authors devote an entire chapter to this while only coming to the following conclusions: no method of buying a car is the clear winner, but if you own a business you may benefit from your connections with the owners of car dealerships; and most millionaires drive unassuming domestic (and to a lesser extent, Japanese) cars purchased new or lightly used. I would hardly categorize it as a self-help book, it's more a retrospective on the authors' research and a collection of anecdotes and interesting conclusions about the countless Americans leading unglamorous lives while accumulating appreciable amounts of wealth. I would only recommend this book as an interesting overview of some good financial habits, or as an eye-opener for those with luxurious financial tendencies who struggle to save money despite their income level."
"This is such an inspiring read because it shows almost anyone can become a millionaire if you live below your means and invest well. I love that the majority of millionaires are people you'd never suspect because they don't live flashy lives in big houses with high-status toys abounding."
"If anything it confirms my current strategy to financial independence."
"Some Shocking Statistics about these Millionaires: -The average taxable income for them is $131,000. -They live on less than 7 percent of their wealth. -Many of their occupations could be classified as dull-normal such as: welding contractor, auctioneer, mobile-home owner, paving contractor, coin and stamp dealer. -They invest on average nearly 20% of their household income. -Most of them are homeowners (97 percent) and their average home value is $320,000. -80% of millionaires today are first generation millionaires. That last statistic was shocking to me. The media portrays the wealthy as a legacy of the rich, one generation just passes it on to the next and the idea of getting there is represented as just a pipe-dream. Just think of it... a man with a slightly above average career, diligently focuses on his finance and investing habits, living below his means, and double checking his budgets before he spends even a $500 on a new television. At that point they have a lot of the first 30k miles bugs worked out and they still ride like a new car, but at 75% off the original price. There is no reason to finance out your life... Getting over your head in debt just amounts to unneeded stress and a bunch of "in-the-moment" toys. You can only keep up with the Jones' so long before you realize you are 50 years old with no retirement and just lots of cars, toys, and a big house with no equity. The alternative is living well off with equity in several properties, a couple reliable cars, travel the world retire early, have the ability to teach financial discipline to your children and live without a lot of unneeded stress!"
"This is an easy read with simple yet powerful advice for how a person can set their future up for success."
"Its ok, kind of drones on about the same stuff."
"Loved this book!"
"There's a lot of valuable info in this book, if you have good financial sense a lot of the stuff in this book you probably already know."
Best Mutual Funds Investing
Written by a practicing emergency physician, The White Coat Investor is a high-yield manual that specifically deals with the financial issues facing medical students, residents, physicians, dentists, and similar high-income professionals. Graduate from medical school with as little debt as possible Escape from student loans within two to five years of residency graduation Purchase the right types and amounts of insurance Decide when to buy a house and how much to spend on it Learn to invest in a sensible, low-cost and effective manner with or without the assistance of an advisor Avoid investments which are designed to be sold, not bought Select advisors who give great service and advice at a fair price Become a millionaire within five to ten years of residency graduation Use a “Backdoor Roth IRA” and “Stealth IRA” to boost your retirement funds and decrease your taxes Protect your hard-won assets from professional and personal lawsuits Avoid estate taxes, avoid probate, and ensure your children and your money go where you want when you die Minimize your tax burden, keeping more of your hard-earned money Decide between an employee job and an independent contractor job Choose between sole proprietorship, Limited Liability Company, S Corporation, and C Corporation. “Jim Dahle has done a lot of thinking about the peculiar financial problems facing physicians, and you, lucky reader, are about to reap the bounty of both his experience and his research.” – William J. Bernstein, MD , Author of The Investor’s Manifesto and seven other investing books. As a medical resident, he grew tired of being ripped off by unscrupulous financial professionals including mutual fund salesmen, insurance agents, realtors, mortgage lenders, and stock brokers and began educating himself on the ins and outs of personal finance and investing. Now he shares his wisdom with medical students, residents, physicians, dentists and similar high income professionals so they can free themselves from debt, quit worrying about money, build wealth, live “the good life,” and get back to practicing medicine on their own terms.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"All premed students should read this book!"
"this book is pretty simple but it does a good job of introducing key concepts and providing insight into the specific financial pressures of healthcare."
"Unfortunately, physicians and high-income professionals can be susceptible to unscrupulous sales tactics due to a lack of financial education and money management."
"Seems to be a must-read for physicians in investing."
"As described on the whitecoatinvestor.com, this book is a great introduction for those of you interested in getting up to speed on the basics."
"Definitely recommend this book to medical/dental students."
"I really appreciate how this book focuses on how you can really mess things up, and how to avoid doing those things."
"A great overview of personal (& some business) finances and investing, especially for physicians."
Best Business Finance
While preserving the integrity of Graham's original text, this revised edition includes updated commentary by noted financial journalist Jason Zweig, whose perspective incorporates the realities of today's market, draws parallels between Graham's examples and today's financial headlines, and gives readers a more thorough understanding of how to apply Graham's principles. Among the library of investment books promising no-fail strategies for riches, Benjamin Graham's classic, The Intelligent Investor , offers no guarantees or gimmicks but overflows with the wisdom at the core of all good portfolio management. Graham's sage advice, analytical guides, and cautionary tales are still valid for the contemporary investor, and Zweig's commentaries demonstrate the relevance of Graham's principles in light of 1990s and early twenty-first century market trends.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"If you are not a professional - you'll appreciate the commentaries and epilogue - read it first? Several rules of thumbs I noted into my keep: - Investor buys the business [based on its price/value], speculator buys the stock [based on an absurd believe that he can foresee where the stock price will go]. Thus, invest in such old economy companies while bubble grows, as soon as the bubble burst - undervalued companies would rise back. Dividends - money firm pays you for providing capital, they belong to you."
"Not only will you get superb financial advice, but also an outstanding piece of literature written by a brilliant mind. In an illustrative contrast between the two men, while Graham might show what he thinks about a certain Wall Street practice with a sardonic quote from classical literature, Zweig disparages IPOs by showing us how many silly phrases he can think up to stand for the acronym."
"It is not a 101 guide to the basics of the stock market, but even if you go into this book with little to no knowledge of the stock market, it is informative enough that if you are intuitive, you can learn (by deduction) about investing."
"Very good that one book all information available for investor."
"New and seal in plastic wrap."
"Difficult for me to follow."
"The original text was updated in 1972 by Graham and then Jason Zweig adds his commentary in 2003 to relate to the changes at that time."
"No complaints of the book itself, but the Kindle edition of it is bad."
Best Economics
develop goals for every reader give students step-by-step strategies for skilled reading guide readers with prompts aligned to the strategies adjust instruction to meet individual needs with Jen's Teaching Tips craft demonstrations and explanations with her Lesson Language learn more with Hat Tips to the work of influential teacher-authors. Whether you use readers workshop, Daily 5/CAFE, guided reading, balanced reading, a core reading program, whole-class novels, or any other approach, The Reading Strategies Book will complement and extend your teaching. Jennifer Serravallo is the author of New York Times bestseller The Reading Strategies Book as well as other popular Heinemann titles, including Teaching Reading in Small Groups; Conferring with Readers; and The Literacy Teacher's Playbook, Grades K - 2 and Grades 3 - 6.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Most books about teaching reading require plowing through lots of pages about the author's philosophy and practices before getting to the good stuff...the stuff you can use in the classroom tomorrow. Every teacher, from classroom teachers to reading specialists to literacy coaches to tutors to home-school teachers, from pre serviice teachers to veteran teachers, will quickly and easily be able to find the strategies they need to teach the students in front of them."
"- Jennifer Serravallo, The Reading Strategies Book: Your EVERYTHING Guide to Developing Skilled Readers. Jennifer Serravallo created the ultimate book of reading strategies. - Classroom Teacher: This is truly a comprehensive book to help you develop individual reading goals or goals for reading strategy groups. The book is organized around the following goals (chapters) for developing skilled readers: - Supporting Pre-Emergent and Emergent Readers. - Teaching Reading Engagement: Focus, Stamina, and Building a Reading Life. - Supporting Print Work: Increasing Accuracy and Integrating Sources of Information. - Teaching Fluency: Reading with Paraphrasing, Intonation, and Automaticity. - Supporting Comprehension in Fiction: Understanding Plot and Setting. - Supporting Comprehension in Fiction: Thinking About Characters. - Supporting Comprehension in Fiction: Understanding Themes and Ideas. - Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction: Determining Maint Topic(s) and Idea(s). - Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction: Determining Key Details. - Supporting Comprehension in Nonfiction: Getting the Most from Text Features. - Improving Comprehension in Fiction and Nonfiction: Understanding Vocabulary and Figurative Language. - Supporting Students' Conversations: Speaking, Listening, and Deepening Comprehension. - Improving Writing About Reading. Each chapter starts with a research-based explanation of WHY the goal is important to developing skilled readers."
"I am a literacy coach and am so excited to use this book next year with teachers at my school. Here's why: I love how Jennifer compares The Reading Strategies Book to a cookbook, It's a great analogy for the lessons in the book. Jennifer walks you through navigating the book, choosing goals for students, how the book might fit into your current literacy instruction, and supporting strategies with visuals. I think this book should be a required text for college literacy courses and should be a welcome gift to new teachers when hired."
"The Reading Strategies Book will be my go-to resource for improving my students' reading comprehension for years to come."
Best Investing
While preserving the integrity of Graham's original text, this revised edition includes updated commentary by noted financial journalist Jason Zweig, whose perspective incorporates the realities of today's market, draws parallels between Graham's examples and today's financial headlines, and gives readers a more thorough understanding of how to apply Graham's principles. Among the library of investment books promising no-fail strategies for riches, Benjamin Graham's classic, The Intelligent Investor , offers no guarantees or gimmicks but overflows with the wisdom at the core of all good portfolio management. Graham's sage advice, analytical guides, and cautionary tales are still valid for the contemporary investor, and Zweig's commentaries demonstrate the relevance of Graham's principles in light of 1990s and early twenty-first century market trends.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"If you are not a professional - you'll appreciate the commentaries and epilogue - read it first? Several rules of thumbs I noted into my keep: - Investor buys the business [based on its price/value], speculator buys the stock [based on an absurd believe that he can foresee where the stock price will go]. Thus, invest in such old economy companies while bubble grows, as soon as the bubble burst - undervalued companies would rise back. Dividends - money firm pays you for providing capital, they belong to you."
"Not only will you get superb financial advice, but also an outstanding piece of literature written by a brilliant mind. In an illustrative contrast between the two men, while Graham might show what he thinks about a certain Wall Street practice with a sardonic quote from classical literature, Zweig disparages IPOs by showing us how many silly phrases he can think up to stand for the acronym."
"It is not a 101 guide to the basics of the stock market, but even if you go into this book with little to no knowledge of the stock market, it is informative enough that if you are intuitive, you can learn (by deduction) about investing."
"Very good that one book all information available for investor."
"New and seal in plastic wrap."
"Difficult for me to follow."
"The original text was updated in 1972 by Graham and then Jason Zweig adds his commentary in 2003 to relate to the changes at that time."
"No complaints of the book itself, but the Kindle edition of it is bad."
Best Accounting
Just as the most effective weight loss strategy is to limit portions by using smaller plates, Michalowicz shows that by taking profit first and apportioning only what remains for expenses, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows. · Following 4 simple principles can simplify accounting and make it easier to manage a profitable business by looking at bank account balances. Apply the pay-yourself-first principle to your business and watch the profits roll in.”. —CHRIS GUILLEBEAU, author of Born for This and The $100 Startup " Profit First is a game-changer. —MICHAEL PORT, author of Steal the Show " Profit First completely transformed how I handle business banking. This book has the potential to change the next 20 years of your small business life.”. —DAWN FOTOPULOS, Associate Professor of Business, The King’s College NYC; author of Accounting for the Numberphobic “ Profit First is a revelation. Profit First makes the process so radically simple that you no longer have an excuse not to be profitable AND have cash flow!”. —GREG CRABTREE, author of Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits. “Not only is Mike one of the most innovative small business authors of our time, his Profit First system—simple to apply and impactful in its results—can be the difference between constantly walking the financial tightrope or being predictably profitable. "Why are so few businesses actually profitable for their owners?
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book is a must read for anyone interested in starting a business or is already a business owner. Business Owners: For years, us accountants have been trying to teach our clients the business owners to run their business using the data in their accounting software and for years business owners have failed to thrive and simply manage sale to sale and payroll to payroll. I have personally witnessed these same business owners implement the stupidly simple strategy this book teaches and completely change the trajectory of their business and their financial position."
"FINALLY, Profit First is the book, the philosophy, the principles, and everything else I have been seeking to apply to the financial/accounting view of our businesses... - It's visual. - It's easy to comprehend. - It really gives you the TRUE financial picture of your business. BEST PART: When you fully implement Profit First, it makes being EXTREMELY PROFITABLE, EASY and FUN."
"With the profit first system, you will start taking your profit out first, and if you are not making a profit, your business will start asking you to address the problem."
"This is an actionable book, and the author encourages you to take simple (sometimes not easy) steps to overcome inertia. I even went so far as to email the author with a question (how the heck can my S corp pay my taxes?!"
"The message of Mike Michalowicz’s "Profit First" is that without a relentless focus on profit, our natural inclinations will drive our businesses into boom-and-bust cycles that revenue growth alone cannot fix."
Best Risk Management
Fully updated and revised, the Thirteenth Edition now covers global topics ranging from natural disasters and terrorism, to domestic issues like the ever-evolving Affordable Care Act and Healthcare Reform.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Risk management may not be the most exciting material but this particular textbook balances brevity with enough details to be very helpful and educational."
"Very pleased with this product."
"Little bit worn I receive it, but a good book."
"This book provides good insight on the main financial investment products available today and the benefits versus risks associated with them."
"Higher quality than expected, fast shipping, version works fine for class."
"The book Amazon sent me starts with chapter one and midway through, skips to chapter five."
Best Personal Budgeting
If you purchase the digital version of The One Week Budget vs. a physical copy, you can find the downloadable, spreadsheet templates from the book for free here: What if I told you that I haven't paid a bill in almost two years and my credit score is in the high 700's, low 800's? With the help of Bella the Budgetnista, featured in this book, we will teach you what I took years to learn. She started her own financial consulting company called, CLD Financial Life LLC.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I intend to read it again and really follow it step by step."
"I love how this book is relatable and full of self-management tips for financial freedom."
"This is a pretty easy system to follow, with great advice on how to cut back on expenses and make big and small changes, depending on how comfortable you are and how urgent your situation is."
"Ok...I must say, I read the entire book once before attempting the steps."
"This book confirmed what I already knew, corrected things I thought I knew, and taught more than I thought it would."
"I knew that I had to be ready for change and I have been doing well and my credit score has improved simply by following the tips that Tiffany gives!"
"This book was so helpful to me."
"This book is easy to read and really practical."
Best Commodities Trading
From how to read charts to understanding indicators and the crucial role technical analysis plays in investing, readers gain a thorough and accessible overview of the field of technical analysis, with a special emphasis on futures markets. He is the author of The Visual Investor and Intermarket Technical Analysis .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The real Bull Trap is covered in Chapter 5 and can also be dangerous."
"What the book book contains about the psychological underpinnings of technical analysis is intriguing, but there ain't much -- just a couple of paragraphs!"
"This book has some boring stuff, but if you want iformation about how the markets work and some good tips on what to look out for when trying to invest, along with detailed information on charts, then this book has it."
"if you want to know about technical analysis, i preferred to use this book."
"Very comprehensive book."
"After reading this book my curiosity to technical analysis went up big time and I started reading a lot about technical analysis, you can see the rest my books in my reviews."
"See the comments on the Study Guide....."
"I was looking for a book that would give me a solid foundation in technical analysis and after having read it I now understand why it is a classic."
Best Introduction to Investing
While preserving the integrity of Graham's original text, this revised edition includes updated commentary by noted financial journalist Jason Zweig, whose perspective incorporates the realities of today's market, draws parallels between Graham's examples and today's financial headlines, and gives readers a more thorough understanding of how to apply Graham's principles. Among the library of investment books promising no-fail strategies for riches, Benjamin Graham's classic, The Intelligent Investor , offers no guarantees or gimmicks but overflows with the wisdom at the core of all good portfolio management. Graham's sage advice, analytical guides, and cautionary tales are still valid for the contemporary investor, and Zweig's commentaries demonstrate the relevance of Graham's principles in light of 1990s and early twenty-first century market trends.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"If you are not a professional - you'll appreciate the commentaries and epilogue - read it first? Several rules of thumbs I noted into my keep: - Investor buys the business [based on its price/value], speculator buys the stock [based on an absurd believe that he can foresee where the stock price will go]. Thus, invest in such old economy companies while bubble grows, as soon as the bubble burst - undervalued companies would rise back. Dividends - money firm pays you for providing capital, they belong to you."
"Not only will you get superb financial advice, but also an outstanding piece of literature written by a brilliant mind. In an illustrative contrast between the two men, while Graham might show what he thinks about a certain Wall Street practice with a sardonic quote from classical literature, Zweig disparages IPOs by showing us how many silly phrases he can think up to stand for the acronym."
"It is not a 101 guide to the basics of the stock market, but even if you go into this book with little to no knowledge of the stock market, it is informative enough that if you are intuitive, you can learn (by deduction) about investing."
"Very good that one book all information available for investor."
"New and seal in plastic wrap."
"Difficult for me to follow."
"The original text was updated in 1972 by Graham and then Jason Zweig adds his commentary in 2003 to relate to the changes at that time."
"No complaints of the book itself, but the Kindle edition of it is bad."
Best International Accounting
Just as the most effective weight loss strategy is to limit portions by using smaller plates, Michalowicz shows that by taking profit first and apportioning only what remains for expenses, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows. · Following 4 simple principles can simplify accounting and make it easier to manage a profitable business by looking at bank account balances. Apply the pay-yourself-first principle to your business and watch the profits roll in.”. —CHRIS GUILLEBEAU, author of Born for This and The $100 Startup " Profit First is a game-changer. —MICHAEL PORT, author of Steal the Show " Profit First completely transformed how I handle business banking. This book has the potential to change the next 20 years of your small business life.”. —DAWN FOTOPULOS, Associate Professor of Business, The King’s College NYC; author of Accounting for the Numberphobic “ Profit First is a revelation. Profit First makes the process so radically simple that you no longer have an excuse not to be profitable AND have cash flow!”. —GREG CRABTREE, author of Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits. “Not only is Mike one of the most innovative small business authors of our time, his Profit First system—simple to apply and impactful in its results—can be the difference between constantly walking the financial tightrope or being predictably profitable. "Why are so few businesses actually profitable for their owners?
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book is a must read for anyone interested in starting a business or is already a business owner. Business Owners: For years, us accountants have been trying to teach our clients the business owners to run their business using the data in their accounting software and for years business owners have failed to thrive and simply manage sale to sale and payroll to payroll. I have personally witnessed these same business owners implement the stupidly simple strategy this book teaches and completely change the trajectory of their business and their financial position."
"FINALLY, Profit First is the book, the philosophy, the principles, and everything else I have been seeking to apply to the financial/accounting view of our businesses... - It's visual. - It's easy to comprehend. - It really gives you the TRUE financial picture of your business. BEST PART: When you fully implement Profit First, it makes being EXTREMELY PROFITABLE, EASY and FUN."
"With the profit first system, you will start taking your profit out first, and if you are not making a profit, your business will start asking you to address the problem."
"This is an actionable book, and the author encourages you to take simple (sometimes not easy) steps to overcome inertia. I even went so far as to email the author with a question (how the heck can my S corp pay my taxes?!"
"The message of Mike Michalowicz’s "Profit First" is that without a relentless focus on profit, our natural inclinations will drive our businesses into boom-and-bust cycles that revenue growth alone cannot fix."
Best Regulation Business Law
A substantially revised and updated new edition of the leading text on business and government, with new material reflecting recent theoretical and methodological advances; includes further coverage of the Microsoft antitrust case, the deregulation of telecommunications and electric power, and new environmental regulations. Part II, on economic regulation, updates its treatment of the restructuring and deregulation of the telecommunications and electric power industries, and includes an analysis of what went wrong in the California energy market in 2000 and 2001. The book manages to convey both contemporary economic theory and current regulatory practice with uncommon lucidly and without burdening the reader with jargon or legalese.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Graphs and charts are well used, though - not overused and generally not put on separate pages from the corresponding text, so you can refer from the words to the chart without turning the page."
"Overall, the book does a phenomenal job at explaining the economics of regulation in the many different sectors throughout time."
"The book is very dense in the theme of econômica regulation, altough I think it should cover market failure and the neoclassical point of view in a more advanced approach."
"I need this book for my Masters and it's impossible to follow if you don't put page numbers!"
"Great book and subject matter."
"this book arrived in the condition exactly as it had been represented."
Best Total Quality Management
Eliminating wasted time and resources Building quality into workplace systems Finding low-cost but reliable alternatives to expensive new technology Producing in small quantities Turning every employee into a qualitycontrol inspector. The result is an amazing business success story: steadily taking market share from price-cutting competitors, earning far more profit than any other automaker, and winning the praise of business leaders worldwide. Dr. Jeffrey Liker, a renowned authority on Toyota's Lean methods, explains how you can adopt these principles--known as the "Toyota Production System" or "Lean Production"--to improve the speed of your business processes, improve product and service quality, and cut costs, no matter what your industry. You'll learn how Toyota fosters employee involvement at all levels, discover the difference between traditional process improvement and Toyota's Lean improvement, and learn why companies often think they are Lean--but aren't. The Toyota Way, explain's Toyota's unique approach to Lean--the 14 management principles and philosophy that drive Toyota's quality and efficiency-obsessed culture. The book is full of examples of the 14 fundamental principles at work in the Toyota culture, and how these principles create a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"There is a good mix of examples of how the Toyota way is followed and how to implement."
"The original story by the original people - buy this for the "lean production" method."
"Being from a mechanical and industrial engineering, this book brought out many changes in my work life and personal life."
"Toyota not only lead the way for manufacturing but for building a company and culture of continuous self improvement for all aspects of the company."
"It's mostly a history book but it's a really neat one all the same."
"I listened to the audiobook while driving along with reading the book whenever I was stationary such as home and work."
"A treasure chest, chuck full of powerful concepts, explained simply, clearly, and concisely: sums it up for me!"
Best Business Planning & Forecasting
One of Wall Street Journal 's. Best Ten Works of Nonfiction in 2012 New York Times Bestseller “Not so different in spirit from the way public intellectuals like John Kenneth Galbraith once shaped discussions of economic policy and public figures like Walter Cronkite helped sway opinion on the Vietnam War…could turn out to be one of the more momentous books of the decade .”. — New York Times Book Review "Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise is The Soul of a New Machine for the 21st century ." Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. In keeping with his own aim to seek truth from data, Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. With everything from the health of the global economy to our ability to fight terrorism dependent on the quality of our predictions, Nate Silver’s insights are an essential read. Baseball, weather forecasting, earthquake prediction, economics, and polling: In all of these areas, Silver finds predictions gone bad thanks to biases, vested interests, and overconfidence.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Longer review: I'm an applied business researcher and that means my job is to deliver quality forecasts: to make them, persuade people of them, and live by the results they bring. But we're not very good at it, and fall prey to cognitive biases and other systemic problems such as information overload that make things worse. However, we are simultaneously learning more about how such things occur and that knowledge can be used to make predictions better -- and to improve our models in science, politics, business, medicine, and so many other areas. For example, on p. 162: "What happens in systems with noisy data and underdeveloped theory - like earthquake prediction and parts of economic and political science - is a two-step process. Second, this noise pollutes journals, blogs, and news accounts with false alarms, undermining good science and setting back our ability to understand how the system really works." Of course this makes the book fascinating to generalists, geeks, and breadth thinkers, but perhaps more importantly, I think it serves well to develop reusable intuition across domains. The third non-fitting audience will be experts who desire depth in one of the book's many topic areas; it's not a technical treatise for them and I can confidently predict grumbling in some quarters."
"The anecdotes and exposition are fantastic, and I wish we could make this book required reading for, say, everyone in the country. This kind of pundit chatter, as Silver notes, tends to be insanely inaccurate. Weather prediction has gotten lots better over the last fifty years, due to highly sophisticated, large-scale supercomputer modeling. Nate Silver made a living playing online poker for a few years. When the government tightened the rules, the less savvy players ("fish") stopped playing, and he found he couldn't make money any more. Rational employees may have less career risk when they "bet with the consensus" than when they buck a trend: this may increase herding effects and makes bubbles worse. Note: Nate pointedly does not claim that one can make money on Intrade by betting based on FiveThirtyEight probabilities. But he stresses that Intrade prices are themselves probably heavily informed by poll-based models like the ones on FiveThirtyEight. Climate prediction: prima facie case for anthropic warming is very strong (greenhouse gas up, temperature up, good theoretical reason for former causing latter). But lots of good reason to doubt accuracy of specific elaborate computer models, and most scientists admit uncertainty about details."
"I do not teach statistics for a living, but I was able to follow Nate Silver's hypotheses, explanations, and formulas; his reasoning was clear."
Best International Business & Investing
Because of that, he became Putin’s number one enemy, especially after Browder succeeded in having a law passed in the United States—The Magnitsky Act—that punishes a list of Russians implicated in the lawyer’s murder. A financial caper, a crime thriller, and a political crusade, Red Notice is the story of one man taking on overpowering odds to change the world, and also the story of how, without intending to, he found meaning in his life. "The first half of Red Notice traces Browder’s improbable journey from prep-school washout through college, business school, and a series of consulting and Wall Street jobs before becoming Russia’s largest foreign investor....This book-within-a-book does for investing in Russia and the former Soviet Union what Liar’s Poker did for our understanding of Salomon Brothers, Wall Street, and the mortgage-backed securities business in the 1980s. Browder’s business saga meshes well with the story of corruption and murder in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, making Red Notice an early candidate for any list of the year’s best books." “In Red Notice , Bill Browder tells the harrowing and inspiring story of how his fight for justice in Russia made him an unlikely international human rights leader and Vladimir Putin's number-one enemy. It is the book for anyone interested in understanding the culture of corruption and impunity in Putin's Russia today, and Browder’s heroic example of how to fight back.” (Senator John McCain). Bill Browder is an amazing moral crusader, and his book is a must-read for anyone who seeks to understand Russia, Putin, or the challenges of doing business in the world today."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I've read a lot of Russian and Soviet history and I am interested in hedge funds, so I picked this book off the Amazon Vine list. Red Notice is the story of Bill Browder's hedge fund, Hermitage Capital, which at one time was the largest foreign investor in Russia. Hermitage produced extremely high returns and, before its demise, Browder had four and a half billion dollars under management. Boris Yeltsin and his advisers who inherited the Russian state wanted to make sure that communism would never return. Gorbachev had almost been overthrown in a coup by the communist old guard, so Yeltsin and his advisers felt that they had to put the state on an irreversible course away from communism as soon as possible. This was the environment that gave rise to the Oligarchs, brilliant and ruthless men who built multi-billion dollar fortunes from the rubble of the Soviet State. He was fascinated by Eastern Europe and when few people saw the possibilities in Russia he established a hedge fund that became wildly successful buying up under priced Russian assets. He managed to get the famous billionaire investor Edmond Safra to put up the initial money for the fund and went on to make huge profits. The standard share for hedge funds is 20% of the profits, so Browder must also have become a very wealthy man (e.g., hundreds of millions of dollars). After buying the under-priced assets they exposed the corruption, which at least for a time drove the thieves away and caused stock prices to rise. What ever the case, there is some irony in Browder's renouncing his US citizenship, since it was the US that allowed him to gain some measure of retribution by passing the Sergei Magnitsky Act."
"Without giving away too much, the book starts with a brief history of the authors early life before proceeding to his university days at Chicago and Stanford before moving to London to be a research analyst for a few firms. To that end he setup his own firm, Hermitage Capital, moved to Russia and came across amazing opportunities as the fall of the Berlin wall and communism was taking place. Starting out with just $25 Million in seed money from Edmund Safra (one of the richest people in the world), Hermitage Capital went on to become one of the largest investment banks in Russia growing to over $4 Billion. This apparently came from President Obama as it would hurt his total appeasement plan of "resetting" relations with Russia and at the time Kerry himself was trying to get the Secretary of State position after Hillary Clinton. Only after another piece of legislation came to bear and the two were tied did it come to the floor but even then John Kerry gave totally shameful remarks during the passage of the bill."
"What a sad commentary on what Russia has become AGAIN."
"I had no idea that they were beating to death innocent people in Russian prisons or manufacturing charges for financial gain."
"I highly recommend this book not only for the story that Bill tells, but also because it sheds light on Vladimir Putin and other criminals that are now in power in Russia."